NASCAR’s Charter Talks Could Derail the Cup Series.

The negotiations between NASCAR and its Cup Series teams to renew their charter agreement are nearing an impasse. On Monday, the Associated Press provided an update on the present situation. From making charters permanent to enabling private equity firms to buy charters and NASCAR to own teams, both sides are making controversial demands, and no one is willing to compromise.

If progress is not made, a boycott or breakaway series is an option, but neither team wants to go that route. NASCAR is presently proposing the teams a seven-year extension on their 36 charters, or full-time Cup Series entry. This would include a cost cap and two contentious provisions: The France family, NASCAR’s owners, would be permitted to buy charters and private equity firms would also be able to buy charters. Other than the guaranteed entry, charters have no intrinsic value.

Charters also have no fixed price, and the cost to buy one has soared since their introduction in 2016 as teams bought and sold them between each other. In 2018, Spire Motorsports bought a charter for $6 million, and in 2023, it bought another charter for $40 million. This is precisely why the teams want the charters to be permanent. If NASCAR decides that it’s done with the charter system and lets the agreements expire, then all the millions spent by the team owners will just evaporate.

With the charters set to expire after this year and NASCAR unwilling to yield, the teams have to consider their options. The AP explains:

“The teams do not want to form their own racing league, and they feel NASCAR would continue without the likes of Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, or Team Penske if they were to boycott races. In such a case, spectators would have to determine whether the substitutes — most likely drivers and teams from lower-level series — deliver a watchable product. “I believe there is still a lot of work to do. Not a small amount of work. Quite a bit. So that will be the emphasis over the next several months to get this thing closer,” Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI Racing, stated after NASCAR’s offer was examined.

NASCAR and the teams need to reach some form of agreement. No deal could cause irreparable damage to stock car racing. IndyCar still hasn’t recovered from the Split, the divide between team-run CART and Indianapolis Motor Speedway that led to the track forming its own racing series in 1996.